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Fade was viciously spamming yik yak, on the other hand. It's pretty ludicrous of them to pretend like they're being oppressed (and to compare Yik Yak to North K

by tedks 12y ago

Fade was viciously spamming yik yak, on the other hand. It's pretty ludicrous of them to pretend like they're being oppressed (and to compare Yik Yak to North Korea!) for retaliation against that.

misingnoglic 12y ago
Sure, but Yik Yak could have had a "report spam" option, or made users type captchas, or reversed down votes if it saw other people gave attention to the post. I can think of a million ways that would be better than what they implemented.
Drakim 12y ago
Your comment here on HN would be marked as spam for using the word "Fade". As would mine. I totally agree that Fade spamming Yik Yak is bad, and pretending that they were wronged by Yik Yak is ridiculous. But that wrong doesn't make this strange censoring right. It's especially troubling that the posts aren't removed, but rather, get softly automatically downvoted over time, making the process almost invisible.
- crystaln 12y ago
  > It's especially troubling that the posts aren't removed, but rather, get softly automatically downvoted over time, making the process almost invisible. Seems perfectly reasonably to balance the expression of users with "fading" spam. If a post really has strong merit, it can still get some visibility, whereas a deleted post can not.
lsaferite 12y ago
How do you viciously spam a localized anonymous message board? - Your posts a limited geographically - The app knows your device ID - The servers should be able to easily detect location hopping With all of that in mind, limiting SPAM posts should be simple. If, instead, your goal is to suppress mentions of your competition, well that's a whole different problem set and you see how the implemented solutions works.
- olefoo 12y ago
  First rule of networked application security is "Don't trust your inputs." It's relatively easy to deceive an app about it's location; easier if it's running in an emulator environment. And that works just as well for iOS as it does for Android.
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    Yes, I know that. That's why I specifically mentioned location hopping. You can also fake device IDs. To fight that you'd have to do even more. The point being, a simple word filter is not how you fight SPAM, it's how you silence something you don't want discussed.
- tedks 12y ago
  You can endlessly create emulators that only spam in a specific area. I only know about Fade because of yik yak spam. Yik Yak is anonymous and has no concept of users. Fighting spam is going to be hard.

by tedks 12y ago

Fade was viciously spamming yik yak, on the other hand. It's pretty ludicrous of them to pretend like they're being oppressed (and to compare Yik Yak to North Korea!) for retaliation against that.

misingnoglic 12y ago

Sure, but Yik Yak could have had a "report spam" option, or made users type captchas, or reversed down votes if it saw other people gave attention to the post. I can think of a million ways that would be better than what they implemented.

Drakim 12y ago

Your comment here on HN would be marked as spam for using the word "Fade". As would mine. I totally agree that Fade spamming Yik Yak is bad, and pretending that they were wronged by Yik Yak is ridiculous. But that wrong doesn't make this strange censoring right. It's especially troubling that the posts aren't removed, but rather, get softly automatically downvoted over time, making the process almost invisible.

crystaln 12y ago
> It's especially troubling that the posts aren't removed, but rather, get softly automatically downvoted over time, making the process almost invisible. Seems perfectly reasonably to balance the expression of users with "fading" spam. If a post really has strong merit, it can still get some visibility, whereas a deleted post can not.

lsaferite 12y ago

How do you viciously spam a localized anonymous message board? - Your posts a limited geographically - The app knows your device ID - The servers should be able to easily detect location hopping With all of that in mind, limiting SPAM posts should be simple. If, instead, your goal is to suppress mentions of your competition, well that's a whole different problem set and you see how the implemented solutions works.

olefoo 12y ago
First rule of networked application security is "Don't trust your inputs." It's relatively easy to deceive an app about it's location; easier if it's running in an emulator environment. And that works just as well for iOS as it does for Android.
- lsaferite 12y ago
  Yes, I know that. That's why I specifically mentioned location hopping. You can also fake device IDs. To fight that you'd have to do even more. The point being, a simple word filter is not how you fight SPAM, it's how you silence something you don't want discussed.
tedks 12y ago
You can endlessly create emulators that only spam in a specific area. I only know about Fade because of yik yak spam. Yik Yak is anonymous and has no concept of users. Fighting spam is going to be hard.